In the places where grass is grown, such as golf courses, grass ballparks or parks, grass is easily pressed down and damaged in the area which is subject to human or vehicular traffic (e.g. a golf cart). Repairing the damaged grass requires considerable amount of costs.
In order to uphold and buffer the load of people or vehicles in such an area, grass protection mats have been used, and these mats are well-known in general.
Although not shown in a separate diagram, a generally known conventional grass protection mat includes a body forming an overall structure of the mat, a lug member provided in the lower part of the body to be placed on the ground, a protruded pillar provided on the upper part of the body, for upholding the load, a buffer wing for dispersing and buffering the load, and an outer frame for maintaining the peripheral frame of the mat.
In addition, for connection of the mats, L-shaped hooks are provided in the outer frame to be fitted into the other outer frame or button-shaped hooks are provided in the adjacent outer frames to be fitted into each other.
In other words, in the conventional grass protection mat, the lug members and the protruded pillars uphold the load of the people or the vehicles passing on the mat while the buffer wings disperse the load, thereby protecting the grass rooted and grown under the mat from being damaged.
In the conventional grass protection mats known to date, simple L-shaped or button-shaped hooks are used to connect the mats, in which the operation is difficult and vertical pushing and fitting is inconvenient for actual connection of the mats.
Particularly, the conventional hooks are detached too easily from the outer frame of the mat when the mats are assembled.
In the meantime, the conventional grass protection mats (refer to FIG. 13) use wires to connect the corners of the mats, and thus the installation of the mats as well as separation of the mats for repair is difficult.
In addition, after the conventional mats are installed on the ground to protect grass, they sink into the ground over time, not effective in protection of the grass.
If the grass protection mat is sunk into the ground or sand is poured over the grass to protect the grass in the golf field, the height of the space for protecting the grass becomes lower, and protection of the grass becomes inefficient.
Therefore, there has been a need for a mat assembly having slide-type hooking means for conveniently connecting the mats in rows and lines, sinking prevention means for preventing the mats from sinking into the ground, and particularly, a mat fastening member for conveniently installing the mats on the ground.